Our story

1st December 2021….. our very first ‘Food hygiene inspection’… We passed!!!! Whilst we all focus on the ‘front’ of the Beech Coffee and Cake shop ie the freshness of the coffee, the range of teas, quality of the freshly baked cakes there is quite a lot of work required in the ‘back office’ of the shop… Not only do we want to enable friendly conversation […]

Beech, Hampshire, 27 November 2021. Coffee and cake on Fridays is now an established social occasion for the people in the Hampshire village of Beech. Our Coffee & Cake shop in the Village Hall has opened 10 times so far, and has served a total of 466 drinks and 505 slices of cake! The shop is open every Friday from 10am until 4pm, and about […]

  After over 6 months of planning, fund raising, shop fitting and training we were delighted to put up the sign and open our doors for our very first Coffee and Cake on Friday 1st October! When we started on this little journey we just had the simple thought that it would be lovely to have a place where our community could meet and chat.Little […]

Well the day has finally dawned after over 6 months of planning, fundraising, shop fitting, glazing and training for us to open for our first run at the Beech Garden Show. We still have a little more ‘carpentry’ to finish before our forma opening on Friday 1st October but we were delighted to be serving coffee, tea and cake for the first time!

Friday 10th September and we run our first training for our volunteers…. aprons, badges, coffee and lemon drizzle cake!!!! Friday 17th September and our second training day… repeat but this time with banana loaf….   And then some more….    

We need more signs! Once the paint was dry time to put up the new signs… A big chalkboard so we can describe our home cakes! A new digital sign to show our prices And a small whiteboard to help our baristas keep track of orders And at last on Wednesday 8th September we have the new oak shelves and monitor surrounds installed! Well done […]

To turn our Hall’s Lounge/Bar into a coffee shop meant we had work to do! More electrical outlets and lights… So here is Dave Goodall helping us with the wiring! Having finished the wiring, Andy Kemp then volunteered to help us with the plastering! And here it is with lots of new sockets and ready to be painted! More shelves for cups, mugs and plates… […]

Thrilled to announce that East Hampshire District Council has approved our bid for a capital grant of £3,303 towards the set up costs of Beech Coffee and Cake!!! All systems go now to finish launch Beech Coffee and Cake on Friday 1st October! For more news on and information how you can get involved please click on this link: Beech Coffee and Cake

We submitted an application for funding of the Beech Coffee and Cake shop to the National Lottery Local Connections Fund And the great news we received on the 13th July is that we have been awarded £1,869 towards our total of £6,606

Many thanks to Sheila Sorby for organising both workshops and then ‘firing’ all the glazed pottery! Great to see the team hard at work painting tea mugs and plates for our Coffee and Cake shop!       Family teamwork required…. Plus extra concentration! And probably a bigger room next time! And here is a selection of the output… all ‘fired up’! We still have […]